Thanks for the update! The online platform sounds cool. I'm sure we will find out upon its release, but can you shed some light as to how the requester pays for it?

As for transcoding implementation into 3rd party software... I work in the States for major studio and network film and tv, and the lead editors I work beside primarily use Avid Media Composer (on rare occasions, Adobe Premiere). Avid Media Composer is the champion NLE in the business, used to edit pretty much every major motion picture and tv series that is consumed in the US. As a Director of Photography, I have found myself shooting a ton of 8k footage these days for companies like Netflix and Hulu. Obviously, editors are pulling their hair out with the large files I hand them that have to be transcoded so that they can edit. Many modern cinema cameras create transcoded proxy footage within the camera simultaneously during filming for editors to relink to after their edit is complete... but many still transcode the footage themselves... and it takes a long, long, long, long time to do so before they are even able to start editing... and these editors are making their day rate to wait. Bulk transcoding seems like a savings to me.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that major studios are very hush-hush about their projects prior to their release, so decentralized and secured bulk transcoding seems like an extremely viable choice for them that can speed up the process and save money. Are there any efforts being made to add decentralized bulk media transcoding for Avid Media Composer as an AMA (or into Adobe Premiere), or is Golem's transcoding primarily for individuals looking to upload to Youtube?

I was an editor and producer for over a decade of docu stuff for MTV, etc. and can attest all of this even before 4-8k took off. I resorted to shipping physical drives all over the country just to cut down work and billables. This is a massive market with untapped potential for streamlining.

In the beginning, the webservice is going to be free (the providers will be paid by GolemFactory). Because of this, there will be some limitations - it can be thought of as a demo. For this reason it won't be suitable for transcoding very long or large files in this phase. The next step, which seems to be very natural, will be to use Metamask. Finally, we'd like to integrate with a payment service provider to enable payments using traditional currencies.

Regarding your second question - unfortunately, it's not planned to add such integration. However, the idea looks very tempting and we'll make sure to investigate this possibility. Thanks for suggesting!

The whole Golem Network will keep operating with GNT, this is not changing. Providers will still receive cryptocurrency. It's just to make the process of requesting transcoding tasks easier for the requestor - to shift the responsibility of exchanging fiat currency to GNT onto someone else (GolemFactory in this case, in situ).

I believe @magdastaciewicz meant an easier way for Requestors (who may not know anything at all about cryptocurrencies) to buy GNT to pay the Providers. I always envisioned a section of the Golem interfece where Requestors could buy GNT, then use it. However, if they can simply pay for their tasks with local fiat/credit card etc., and not even have an awareness they are paying for their tasks with GNT (not sure about this part, if it's what was meant, but the answer from magdastasiewicz made me think of it), that would make onboarding of non-crypto people even easier.

How big are the files and how fast is your company's internet connection? Depending on how fast that is and how large the files are, then you might or might not save time. Everything surely has to be calculated, but if it works out then it would be a great opportunity which I think they should take.